Teabag Tarot: Light and Dark

I take my tea seriously. Well, maybe not my tea as much as the Teabag Tarot which accompanies it. This one was especially poignant since I've recently gone through a rather dark moment.

Dark moments happen. Our reflection seems a bit dingy. Our minds quietly turn toward melancholy. Our hearts feel too heavy for breath. These moments last however long they last ~ days or weeks or years. We may tumble in for an extended period or cycle in and out as the moments capture us.

When we're in the midst of them, we struggle to believe in, much less see and feel, the light. No matter. The light is there. Feeding us. Supporting us. Reaching toward us. As we emerge from our dark moment, we recognize that. We may rage against the light, howling about its desertion of us. Again, no matter. The light moves toward us, surrounds us, nurtures us. We breathe it in and move on.

Details of my dark moment stacked one upon another, consisting mostly of watching friends going through painful transitions that ranged from an unwanted move to significant health issues to the beginnings of dementia. As I slid from one to another of my friends' issues, rest eluded me. I slipped into an anxiety of my own, compounded by juggling connections and too much busyness. Little things that normally would glissade past, now crowded onto the stack. I watched sleep pass further out of reach. Sound familiar?

The four charges in this Teabag Tarot resonate like proverbs in my ear. We hear them, maybe even say them, with increasing frequency. Live light. Keep your life as simple as possible. Open yourself to the beauty around you. Travel light. Don't take or take on more than you can carry. Be ready to give up whatever doesn't serve you. Lighten your own load. Spread the light. Share the beauty within you. Listen to others. Give of yourself. Be the light. Live with self-understanding. Be an example of vulnerability and courage for others. When I remember these charges, when I actively practice them, they don't make the dark moments go away. They simply remind me of the balance of light and darkness in my life, our lives and our world.

What dark moments have you gone through? How did you get through them? Where are you now in the movement from light to dark? What practices help you find balance? What practices do you want to increase? diminish? maintain?

Life and Courage

Great gratitude to the tea companies that provide me with Teabag Tarot! This one arrived attached to a my tea yesterday. It resonated deeply with me.

Despite the words, I do not believe this is truly saying life itself doesn't matter. It's the details of life, the day-to-day stuff that happens, that is less important. In the long run, it won't matter if your work colleague took credit for your idea or if your lawn was mowed every weekend or if you had the highest gpa in seventh grade. What makes a difference is what you bring to the adversity you face. How did you respond when someone put you down? What did you do when the doctor gave you a worrisome diagnosis? How did you face the rapids when you were whitewater rafting?

Courage is a force within each of us. It shows up in different ways. Sometimes it's the moments when we break down, weep and wail over what's been lost, and continue on. Or the times when we find we need to turn our backs on a painful situation and move on. Or the times when we step in to fully embrace a new situation. Courage comes into our lives in times of change, whether radical or subtle, desired or resisted, adventurous or mundane. It does not reveal itself the same way in each person or in each situation.

We value strong shows of courage ~ and the people who exhibit them. We often don't recognize the less flashy kind. The mother whose child is born with a disability, whose courage is a daily movement and coupled with love. The youth whose dream is to be an artist and continues his art, no matter what. The surgeon who leaves her practice when she realizes her hands are no longer as steady as they once were. These are courageous moments too. They are the day-to-day decisions we make about how we will go on. Courage comes from a deep place within us, a wellspring we often don't know we have until we need it.

In what situation has courage arisen in your life? How do you recognize it in others? What kind of practice might cultivate courage for you?

Resistance to Fear

Sometimes it takes more than an alarm to get me moving in the morning. Sometimes I'm afraid of what I might find confronting me in my world. Monsters and spiders are not the only things that create fear.

In the past several months, I've discovered there are some subtle energetics that cause me to step into my personal fear space. They aren't specific or overt like a bully waiting for me at the door or a raging hailstorm. What comprises these fears is difficult to comprehend, and even more difficult to explain. It's something like a hiccup in my own sense of well-being, a slight slip in my sense of myself. It's amazing how small a shift can impact my level of fear.

I love Mark Twain's description of Courage ~ because I have become more aware of the subtleties of fear and its expression in my life. When I resist fear ~ fear of being alone, fear of being wrong, fear of being out of control, fear of.... well, whatever might show up or not show up in my day ~ that's when I am most courageous. Fear wants to freeze me in place, like a children's game whose rules are that you can move only when the person who is "It" isn't looking. The point is not that you don't want to move toward "Home," but that you don't want to be seen actually moving. Fear does that to us, to me. It wants me to stop moving forward, to freeze in its view. Every step I take toward basking in the light of the sun and the beauty of the day instead of freezing in fear brings me closer to mastery of that bugaboo. It is my courage that moves me forward, and for that, I am grateful.

How do you choose to move forward? How do you master fear? What do you feel when you move in spite of what fear tells you?

Original and Unconventional

I don't really want to become normal, average, standard. I want merely to gain in strength, in the courage to live out my life more fully, enjoy more, experience more. I want to develop even more original and more unconventional traits.

~  Anais Nin

Much of the beauty in this world slips past because my mind is set to a pace that has become the norm for our culture. I miss smelling the roses, noticing a waterfall between the tree branches. dancing to music only my soul can hear.

I've always been an original. In the terms of Clarissa Pinkola Estes' stories, I felt as though I was a 'misplaced zygote' ~ as though I didn't belong in my family. Nothing big or bad. I simply felt 'different.' I felt that way everywhere I went. In school, at church, in gatherings of friends. Even when I participated in the same events as everyone else, I felt like an oddity, an outsider.

What Nin describes is not only allowing, but encouraging that originality. Perhaps even basking in the difference, the unconventionality. Her focus is on strength and courage, two traits I've been consciously cultivating recently. For me that means letting go of how I've defined myself for the past 20 years or so.... well, how I've allowed myself to be defined. How I've hidden behind some of the definitions. I believe it's time to move beyond them, to redefine myself. Or more precisely, to let who and what I am, and am growing into, shine. I don't need definition!

What defines you? How do you draw on your personal strength? your personal courage? Do you believe in your own originality? How does that manifest for you?

Shaman of Courage

The Shaman's Oracle ~ J. Matthews & W. Kinghan

As I focused on the coming week, I asked the question: What do I need for the coming week? What quality would serve me best?

And so I drew Courage. One facet of a Shaman's being is to dream the world into existence. Those dreams take courage. Courage to move forward in time. Courage to release what is no longer needed. Courage to step into one's power. Courage brings many, many gifts with it.

The image on the card is like a shadow dancer. It has hands that are over-sized to capture and to defend. From its hip comes what looks like another hand ~ or a weapon. On its head are horns. It is wavy, tall and strong and looks as though it could carry one into the future.

What need do you have for courage? What are you willing to let go? What is calling you forward? How will you dream your future?